Menu Plan ~ A day late! :)

Chili

BBQ Chicken Pizza, Corn on the cob

Chicken tortilla soup (from the freezer!)


Roast w/ Carrots and Potatoes, Biscuits

I just totally forgot about posting my menu yesterday! I had made one and saved it before I went grocery shopping Saturday (I loathe grocery shopping on Saturday, btw!) but just forgot to finish it and post it.

Last night I made the Spicy Chicken Noodle Casserole and it was pretty good. It was a new recipe and when I first bit into it I didn't think I liked it. But the more I ate it the more I liked it. It wasn't that it wasn't good that first bite, I just had in my mind that it would taste different. Anyways, the Hubs and Eli both liked it (and my mom who came by to drop something off and tried it). Luke didn't touch it, of course, but that was expected. The recipe actually came out of my last power bill. I'll post it below. I also tried something new with chicken yesterday. I found whole chickens on sale for 0.88 cents a pound. I had never cooked a whole chicken! I had seen recipes online about cooking them in the crock pot so I decided to try it. Here is what I did: Cut up one large onion and two lemons into slices. I also set aside a big spoonful of minced garlic and some of the house seasoning (recipe below) I use. I did all this before I started messing with the chicken to avoid getting chicken juice all over my kitchen! I just put the onions, garlic and lemons in a bowl and put a small bowl of the seasoning & olive oil out too. Remove the insides (this is the whole reason why I have never cooked a whole chicken. YUCK! But I did it and survived and you can too!) and chunk them! Rinse and pat your chicken dry (inside and out... yes, I 'patted' the inside of the chicken dry too). Stuff all of the lemons and as much of the onions & garlic inside the chicken. I wasn't able to get much onion in there but I did what I could. Rub the outside of the chicken with olive oil and the seasoning mix. Put the remainder of the onion on top of the chicken. Cook on high for about 5 hours or low 8 hours. I had a 3.5 lb bird and she was done after about 4 hours on high. You can also just use onion and garlic and not use lemons but I had a bag of lemons in the fridge that I needed to use up. Actually, the recipe I 'followed' used a sliced apple in place of the lemons. The chicken just fell apart and was really moist. It's a really good way to cook chicken for casseroles, burritos, soups. I used this chicken for the casserole recipe below and saved the rest for BBQ chicken pizza later in the week. I'm sure roasting a chicken in the oven is better if you're actually going to just eat the chicken by itself since it doesn't fall apart!

Spicy Chicken Noodle Casserole

2 roasted chicken breast, diced or shredded
Small package of egg noodles (I used half of a large bag)
2-3 stalks of celery, chopped
1 1/2 cups carrots, shredded
1 medium onion, chopped
2 TBS garlic, minced
8 oz sour cream (I used light)
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can rotel
1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
1 1/2 cups parmesan cheese, grated
1/3 c butter (left this out)
1 sleeve ritz crackers

Boil egg noodles, Drain, saving one cup of liquid (I forgot to do this so just added a plain ol' cup of water). Butter drained noodles with 1/3 c of butter (I didn't do this). Boil carrots and celery until fork tender. (I didn't do this either!!) Saute onion in a little olive oil (I added my carrots and celery to my onion and let them all saute) until fork tender. Add garlic and saute 2-3 more minutes. Turn heat off. Add the water to the veggies. Add sour cream, cream of chicken soup, rotel, chicken, cheddar cheese, and noodles and mix well. Pour into a greased casserole dish. On top layer parmesan cheese, Crushed ritz crackers and a few pieces of cubed butter. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Paula Deen's House Seasoning

1 cup salt
1/4 cup black pepper
1/4 c garlic powder

Combine all ingredients and store in an air tight container. Mine sits in my cabinet in one of those Rubbermaid bowls. Shake it before you use it because the pepper and garlic settle to the bottom. I sprinkle this on almost every meat I'm cooking!

Have a good week!